In the past we’ve touched on the delicate balance that churches must maintain while appealing to millennials without pandering or changing theology. But what if we’re focusing our efforts in the wrong places?
What if the loud music and fog machines are actually clouding the Holy Spirit and preventing people from connecting with God? What if, instead of adapting to a modernized culture with our church services, we kicked it old school? Like, really old.
Well, that’s exactly what the Church of England is doing. Despite growing secularism in the country, the church has seen attendance grow over the past several years with the help of a centuries-old liturgical tradition: Evensong. Choral Evensong is an evening prayer service that is delivered mostly through song, offering a restful, reflective time to worship God and pause from the busy-ness of life. The choir performs live and is often highly skilled and well-trained. Read More
A word of caution to North American Anglican readers who may be entertaining the idea of copying what the Church of England is doing. Cathedral choral evensong requires a particular setting - the cavernous space of a cathedral and its particular acoustics, "highly-skilled" and "well-trained" choristers, and the wide spread belief in one or more segments of the larger community that attendance at a performance of choral evensong is a worthwhile experience. All three conditions may exist in a number of cathedral towns in the United Kingdom. They likely as not do not exist in your town here in the United States.
In the last few years there have been a number of articles extolling liturgical forms of worship as the best way to reach Millenials. These articles use anecdotal evidence to support their claim. According Ed Stetzer who "holds the Billy Graham Distinguished Chair of Church, Mission, and Evangelism at Wheaton College, is executive director of the Billy Graham Center, and publishes church leadership resources through Mission Group," the research on Millenials and church attendance does not support the claim that Millenials are flocking in droves to liturgical churches. Some Millenials who attend church are attracted to liturgical forms of worship. However, the larger number of church-attending Millenials are attracted to so-called non-liturgical forms of worship. This has been my own observation in regards to the church attendance habits of university students and other young adults in the community. I live on the outskirts of a university town in westernmost Kentucky and I am one of a small number of senior adult students at the university.Those who do attend a church are more likely to attend a "contemporary" worship service, even those coming from a liturgical church background. Catholic students are likely to attend a student Mass which incorporates elements of "contemporary" worship.
Clearly there is no one particular form of worship that appeals to all Millenials. There is no substitute for getting to know the Millenials in your community and starting from there. Worship gatherings may not be the best way to reach and engage that particular segment of your community's population. A lot of the young adults who might never attend my own church's traditional language Prayer Book services would work along side of members of the church upon a community service project that they considered worthwhile.This entails getting to know them and learning what they regard as valuable or important.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not dissing liturgical forms of worship - far from it. Rather I believe that it is a mistake to concentrate all our efforts and resources on one approach that may not yield the results that we hoped it would, an approach that does not take into consideration our particular ministry target group's leanings.
It is noteworthy that the non-denominational church with which I sojourned from 2007 to 2016 has experienced a drop in the number of university students attending its worship gatherings. The church continues to grow but it is not reaching and engaging students as it once did.This may be explained in part by a shift in the church's focus from the university student body to the larger community and changes in the church attendance patterns of the students enrolling in the university. A great band and an inspiring preacher do not hold the attraction for the latest group of students that they did for earlier groups. There is also less visible student involvement in the various ministries of the church today than there was 9 years ago. At that time students formed the backbone of the church.
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